BioWare's Emmanuel Lusinchi, lead designer on Star Wars: The Old Republic, tells gamesTM that the quality of some competing MMOGs is more of a factor than how they are free-to-play as something that has caused them to rethink their approach to their MMORPG. Along the way, he does admit that they are "looking at" F2P: "The MMO market is very dynamic and we need to be dynamic as well," he says. "Unless people are happy with what they have, they are constantly demanding updates, new modes and situations. So we are looking at free-to-play but I can’t tell you in much detail. We have to be flexible and adapt to what is going on."

Jonny wrote on Jun 15, 2012, 05:47:I'd personally prefer it if they stripped the MMO shit out, repackaged it as a singleplayer game with co-op and sold mini expansions.

There is the possibility that EA closes Bioware, making an EA Edmonton with the remaining staff and just do Dragon Ages, Mass Effect-Prequels and KOTORs till the end of time. Heck, they might just re-activate the Neverwinter or Baldurs Gate franchise to make a good buck with mass appeal fantasy action games for the console market.

It's free of risk, people will buy that. Even a Dragon Age 2 wasn't a commercial flop, it made its fair share of money.

They've done that already haven't they? Bioware haven't had an original concept since the first Mass Effect and even that was jammed to the gills with standard Bioware and sci-fi clichés. Their name is already worthless after EA appropriated it for an RTS developer with no actual ties to the original company.

This has all happened plenty of times before with EA. Hell, maybe in fifteen years time we'll all be bitching about the new EA online content delivery system, Bioware.